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Instead, I am afforded a reminder harsher than any rod, that cuts deeper than any blade: Kushiel's justice is cruel
You onder if I loved you The answer is yes; a thousand times, yes
Oneit After we retreated froash on e onfrom my closed lids I'd known the letters had bruised and battered my heart I hadn't knownwithinI had buried since I was ten years old and I learned who I was Noas cracked asunder
It hurt
It hurt because I had believedin my mother's vast ahing infant in his mother's arms, for all that she had understood too late I had spent soenius It was hard to feel otherwise
Alone in the darkness of ainst hed I couldn't love her Not now; likely not ever But I could begin to forgive her, at least a little bit, for the things that had befallen me
In ti into the depths of exhaustion At first I drea ed For the first tia I dreair's s scraped over a whetting stone, and I cried aloud and woke
A figure at thestartled "Your highness?”
I sat up and squinted at her There was light spilling intodrawn, nothing more "Clory?”
Phèdre's handhness!”
"It's just h my disheveled hair "Is it late?”
Her lips twitched "Late enough, according to ht want a bite of luncheon”
"Luncheon?" My belly rumbled "Tell them I'll be down directly”
No one , and took a seat at the table Joscelin gave lance, and Phèdre ues were there, bickering good-naturedly about who had neglected to fill an earrison
"I thought we ht spar later," Joscelin offered after I'd filled one”
Ti-Philippe snorted "You?”
"Well" Joscelin looked mildly at him "Somewhat, yes”
I didn't believe it any hed " 'Alone at dawn the Cassiline stands,'" he declai in his hands Across the cobbled stones he glides Through the air his bright blade slides' …Oh, all right," he added as Joscelin rolled his eyes "I'll stop”
I laughed, too Hugues was kindhearted and loyal to the bone, but his poetry was notoriously dreadful "I'd like that," I said to Joscelin "Indeed, why not now?”
He glanced at Phèdre
"There was a ," she said quietly "The Lady Bernadette wishes you to call upon her at your earliest convenience”
"I see" I nodded "Well, good”
Ti-Philippe raised his brows "A clandestine affair? That's sork, young Ih to be your mother?”
"H to be an encounter I relished, but it was necessary and I'd be glad to have thepersecuted for my mother's sins
"It's not what you think It'sa family matter, that's all She is my cousin, you know”
"Ah, well" He grinned "That never stopped anyone”
"Shall I go with you?" Joscelin asked
"No," I said slowly "It's …somewhat I'd rather do alone”
He gave ht, then”
After our luncheon was concluded, I borrowed Phèdre's study to make a fair copy of a letter in my possession Not one of ant, scrawled on a single sheet of parchnature and a smeared thumbprint affixed at the bottoero Caccini In it, he divulged the details of his arrangement with Lady Bernadette de Trevalion, who had paid him a considerable sum of money to ensure that a deadly mishap befell me in the city of Tiberium
I'd found out about it And I'd extorted the letter fro a combination of blackmail and bribery
I daresay my mother would have been proud
I had the Bastard saddled and rode to the Palace There was a sharp chill in the air, a harbinger of winter It ht rein and he chafed under it, tossing his head and chaani-bred, one of the best I patted his red-speckled hide, thinking about Gilot and how ether in Montrève the day I learned my mother had vanished
I wished I'd bought it for him, now
Gilot was dead He'd been one of Montrève'sto a friend I had aone with ue and a trial to hione to protect ht hio that I had arrived in the City; two days ago that we had buried him I missed him